Brooklyn Homicide Rate Hits Record Low in 2018

Brooklyn’s homicide rate in 2018 ended in a record low with under 100 homicides. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and District Attorney Eric Gonzalez started off the New Year by highlighting the dwindling homicide numbers on Jan. 2.

The Clergy Council’s GodSquad—a liaison partnered with the NYPD—and other community organizations stood side by side with Adams and Gonzalez to discuss the successful year of crime reduction.

The record-low number of homicides was first announced on Dec. 27, with 97 murders recorded in 2018—almost 12 percent down from last year’s Brooklyn homicide count of 110. Following the declining number of homicides, is the 43 percent drop of misdemeanor defendants held on bail in Riker’s Island—the main jail complex in New York City—among other drops in crime rates, according to the press release.

Funding the Primary Force

Adams and Gonzalez attributed much of the drop in criminal activity to community groups such as The GodSquad and other liaison community organizations, which Adams called the backbone in the borough’s ability to lower the crime rate.

“Police can only remain on the surface, it is the everyday men and women who are part of the violence interrupters, the precinct council leaders, the clergy leaders,” said Adams.

With billions of dollars going into the New York City Police Department (NYPD), Adams said that a part of that should be going to these organizations, as they’ve proved that they can assist and do the job well.

Gonzalez echoed the Borough President: “In order to move forward, we have to make sure that our partners here in the community have the resources to continue to do the work that they do.”

Crime Rate Stats

Coney Island was highlighted with no homicides—a 100 percent drop compared to the eight homicides last year. East Flatbush went from 17 homicides last year, six this year—a 65 percent drop, in the press release. And lastly, East New York, with six homicides this year, compared to 11 last year—a 45 percent drop.

The report also indicates an almost 15 percent drop in total arrests. Accompanying this were drops in most of the seven major crime rates categories—murder, robbery, felony assault, and different property crimes—except for one: reported rape cases saw an increase in of almost 16 percent in 2018.

View of Manhattan from The Empire State Building in New York City, on Nov. 27, 2018. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

The drops in crime are not restricted to Brooklyn alone.

Nearing the end of 2018, there was a 7-day stretch of no murders in New York City, a streak that ended on Dec. 28, according to ABC7. Nonetheless, New York City has seen a decline in homicides as a whole.

In this year’s NYPD Commissioner’s report, Mayor de Blasio said that “as recently as the early 1990s, New York City saw more than 2,000 murders and more than 5,000 shootings a year. By contrast, 2017 was the safest year in modern recorded history, with fewer than 300 murders and fewer than 800 shootings in a city of 8.5 million.”